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Again you're confused. In most cases people are not getting banned/cancelled on social media for breaking an actually enforceable law in the legal sense. They

by IE6 5y ago

Again you're confused. In most cases people are not getting banned/cancelled on social media for breaking an actually enforceable law in the legal sense. They are breaking a TOS put forth by the owner of that social media site. Twitter banning someone for inciting violence is no different than a mod banning someone on a web forum for disagreeing that ATI video cards are not the best. You can't call people the n-word on facebook. If you don't believe that is real I'm not sure I have the energy to expand on it for you (perhaps someone else can).

noxer 5y ago
No, you are confused, no one questions that people are indeed getting banned for "hate speech". This just doesn't proof that "hate speech" is an actual thing with a definition. It just means that it is in fact used to get rid of people for various reasons. Breaking the ToS is also not the problem here the problem here is that ToS are written unspecific, specifically when they put things like "hate speech" in it because no one know what will fall under it and what not. The whole point of rules should be that people should be able to understand and comply with them easily. Instead they are used as a general propose banning reason for anything the owner may not like. >Twitter banning someone for inciting violence is no different than a mod banning someone on a web forum for disagreeing that ATI video cards are not the best. You can't call people the n-word on facebook. If you don't believe that is real I'm not sure I have the energy to expand on it for you (perhaps someone else can). It its not about the rules, who or why someone put them up or that they have the right to do that. Its about mutual agreement as to how the rules are interpreted else they make no sense. "Hate speech" rules make no sense because no one know how they are interpreted. Lets say I open a forum and say in the rules "no hate speech" and then when someone says "I hate dogs" I ban them for "hate speech". Clearly I can do that since its my forum and I can do whatever I want. But that doesn't make "I hate dogs" actual "hate speech" nor does it proof that "hate speech" is a real thing. All this does it give me backdoor to remove almost anyone I want for a "pseudo reason" which I didn't need in the first place but it makes it look like I just enforce the rules and remove the bad guys. And that is exactly what these platform do. If people would get banned for no reason given then people would question it so they put up reasons like "violated community guidelines" and similar stuff and then people assume it was the users fault. But is it the guys fault who wrote "I hate dogs"? Is that hate speech? And if so did he knowingly broke the rule? He could only know if "hate speech" is defined somehow but it isn't. Everything the platform owner hates is or can be defined as hate speech at any given time. Hence my original post that there is no such thing as "hate speech" its a made up term to include whatever someone wants it to include.
- RajT88 5y ago
  All terms referring to ideas are made up. We made them up; the animals sure didn't. Your technical point falls on its face there. Hate speech for sure is a real thing. Is calling someone the N-word hate speech? Not always. Context matters - there are some corner cases where it is clearly not. But mostly, calling someone the N-word or other racial slut is a hateful act. This word has such a long and nasty history that it is extremely clear its meaning. There are very few corner cases e.g. Hate Speech exists. Your complaint is less that it doesn't exist, and more that mods are seemingly expanding the meaning by making judgment calls on the intent of speech. Using another example to try and explain it, if someone said, "Why are the Inuit so lazy! They just don't want to work." (Something I cannot imagine anyone saying, btw) Well. That is a negative and purjorative generalization of a racial/social group, and whatever -ist label you want to put on it, that too is hate speech. If you walk it back a bit and get a little more wordy with the language, where it may not be as explicit making that generalization, a mod may or may not decide to ding you for it. It then depends on their reading of your intent. Some mods get it right (I would say most), but some get it wrong, and there are a few who use TOS to enforce their own biases. That hardly negates the existence of Hate Speech. Forum moderation is hard, as I said in a previous post. You will not always agree with the mods. And indeed the mods do not always get it right, and sometimes there are bad mods. The key is to try to first understand the TOS and second mind the social norms of that forum (just like you would at work or at church). Above all, the same basic rule applies in online forums as it does in work or church: Just try not to be a dick.

by IE6 5y ago

noxer 5y ago

No, you are confused, no one questions that people are indeed getting banned for "hate speech". This just doesn't proof that "hate speech" is an actual thing with a definition. It just means that it is in fact used to get rid of people for various reasons. Breaking the ToS is also not the problem here the problem here is that ToS are written unspecific, specifically when they put things like "hate speech" in it because no one know what will fall under it and what not. The whole point of rules should be that people should be able to understand and comply with them easily. Instead they are used as a general propose banning reason for anything the owner may not like. >Twitter banning someone for inciting violence is no different than a mod banning someone on a web forum for disagreeing that ATI video cards are not the best. You can't call people the n-word on facebook. If you don't believe that is real I'm not sure I have the energy to expand on it for you (perhaps someone else can). It its not about the rules, who or why someone put them up or that they have the right to do that. Its about mutual agreement as to how the rules are interpreted else they make no sense. "Hate speech" rules make no sense because no one know how they are interpreted. Lets say I open a forum and say in the rules "no hate speech" and then when someone says "I hate dogs" I ban them for "hate speech". Clearly I can do that since its my forum and I can do whatever I want. But that doesn't make "I hate dogs" actual "hate speech" nor does it proof that "hate speech" is a real thing. All this does it give me backdoor to remove almost anyone I want for a "pseudo reason" which I didn't need in the first place but it makes it look like I just enforce the rules and remove the bad guys. And that is exactly what these platform do. If people would get banned for no reason given then people would question it so they put up reasons like "violated community guidelines" and similar stuff and then people assume it was the users fault. But is it the guys fault who wrote "I hate dogs"? Is that hate speech? And if so did he knowingly broke the rule? He could only know if "hate speech" is defined somehow but it isn't. Everything the platform owner hates is or can be defined as hate speech at any given time. Hence my original post that there is no such thing as "hate speech" its a made up term to include whatever someone wants it to include.

RajT88 5y ago
All terms referring to ideas are made up. We made them up; the animals sure didn't. Your technical point falls on its face there. Hate speech for sure is a real thing. Is calling someone the N-word hate speech? Not always. Context matters - there are some corner cases where it is clearly not. But mostly, calling someone the N-word or other racial slut is a hateful act. This word has such a long and nasty history that it is extremely clear its meaning. There are very few corner cases e.g. Hate Speech exists. Your complaint is less that it doesn't exist, and more that mods are seemingly expanding the meaning by making judgment calls on the intent of speech. Using another example to try and explain it, if someone said, "Why are the Inuit so lazy! They just don't want to work." (Something I cannot imagine anyone saying, btw) Well. That is a negative and purjorative generalization of a racial/social group, and whatever -ist label you want to put on it, that too is hate speech. If you walk it back a bit and get a little more wordy with the language, where it may not be as explicit making that generalization, a mod may or may not decide to ding you for it. It then depends on their reading of your intent. Some mods get it right (I would say most), but some get it wrong, and there are a few who use TOS to enforce their own biases. That hardly negates the existence of Hate Speech. Forum moderation is hard, as I said in a previous post. You will not always agree with the mods. And indeed the mods do not always get it right, and sometimes there are bad mods. The key is to try to first understand the TOS and second mind the social norms of that forum (just like you would at work or at church). Above all, the same basic rule applies in online forums as it does in work or church: Just try not to be a dick.